Separated from instructors and observers by curtains of thick plastic at the Rochester Arc & Flame Center in Gates, students at individual workstations practice techniques of grinding and welding metal pipes while wide sprays of sparks careen off their work like water from lawn sprinklers.

"I've always liked working with my hands," said one of the students in the pipe welding class, Eric Eccleston, 38, of Rochester. "I love taking things apart, seeing how they work."

The former U.S. Navy Seabee signed up for the Monroe Community College pipe-welding course after finishing a separate 20-week MCC certificate program on the basics of welding earlier in the summer. His goal is to become a jack-of-all-trades welder as a career, doing anything from bridge work one week to pipelines the next.

"I knew I had to go back to school and learn something," Eccleston said. "This looks interesting. This looks good."

Welding instruction and training in the Rochester area is, pun fully intended, hot — mostly due to one man.

Krupnicki said that for years he fielded phone calls from people wanting to learn how to weld. And running Mahany Welding, he knew of plenty of companies in need of welders. "They were so desperate for welders," he said. They would ask, "'Who can we steal welders from? We're turning away work.'"

While some area high schools and BOCES teach welding, "I thought it could be done better, or differently," Krupnicki said.

Mahaney, a distributor of industrial products to the metalworking industry, began in 1946 and primarily serves customers in the Rochester area. Krupnicki's father, who worked there, bought it in the 1950s, and it has remained in the family since.

The move into welding teaching began in 1999 with an expansion of its Gates operation. Between Eastman Kodak Co.'s decline and the growth of e-commerce, "The business wasn't going to be the same as it was the first 50 years," Krupnicki said. "I thought maybe it's time to change the image of welding a little bit."

Mahany opened a training center in 2001, offering courses the following year — first Saturday workshops, then continuing education night courses before partnering with area colleges like MCC and Rochester Institute of Technology. The 20-week MCC vocational program started slowly, but now brings close to 100 students a week to the Gates facility.

That traffic prompted Mahany to build Arc & Flame, a 5,000-square-foot separate school. It opened in 2012.

The Mahany collaboration is one of a number of examples where MCC and private enterprise have teamed up under the auspices of workforce development.

"This is a model we recognize the power of and a model we want to do more with," said Todd Oldham, MCC vice president of Economic Development and Innovative Workforce Services. "When you're dealing with the myriad of needs in the workforce, even a large community college like MCC, we don't have all the resources to meet all the need."

Along with the MCC course, Arc & Flame also hosts RIT courses and has its own instructors teaching various welding vocational courses.

"We don't have Boeing or Bethlehem Steel here," so Arc & Flame also offers a variety of glass art training and blacksmithing courses and houses the New York State Designer Blacksmith Guild, Krupnicki said: "It all involves heat and fire."

Arc & Flame also hosts a variety of more entertainment-related welding events, Krupnicki said, ranging from bachelor and bachelorette parties to corporate retreats. While Arc & Flame's current 20-week program is for general practitioners, Krupnicki said he'd like to further expand offerings in specialty areas such as training of use of robotic welders.

"I tell people I'd love to say this was my vision 12 years ago," he said. "It just evolved."

Welders

The job: Cutting and joining metals or thermoplastics by using heat and pressure.

The pay: New York metalworkers such as welders, cutters and brazers can earn anywhere from roughly $26,800 at entry level to more than $47,000 with experience, according to state Labor Department figures.

The prospects: According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of welders and related metal workers is expected to grow 15 percent between 2010 and 2020. In New York state, the growth expectations are a little more modest, at roughly 8 percent between 2010 and 2020.

The next set of classes in the career welding and fabrication program begins in February. Cost of the 20-week course is $7,200 and there's a limit of 32 students. For more information, call (585) 349-7110 or email info@rocafc.com. Prospective students must attend an information session and a final interview before being accepted into the program.